United States Department of the Interior National Park ... · PDF fileNPS Form lO. 8 No....

NPSForm lO. 8 No. 1024-0018

United States Department of the InteriorNational Park Service

National Register of Historic PlacesRegistration Form

1. Name of Property

historic name: Horsehead/Marbella

other name/site number:

________________

2. L.ocatlon

street& number: 240 Highland Drive

city/town: Jamestown vicinity: N/A

code: 005 zip code:

not for publication:

02835

N/A

state: RI county: Newport

3. ClassifIcation

Ownership of Property: private

Category of Property:

__________________

Number of Resources within. Property:

Contributing Noncontributing

2

_______

buildings1

_______

sites3

_______

structuresobjects

6

______

Total

Number of contributing resources previously listed in the National Register: 0

Name of related multiple property listing: N/A

USbI/NPSNRHP Registration Form Property name Horsehead/Marbella. Newbort County. Jamestown. RI

4. State/Federal Agency Certification

As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1986, as amended, I hereby certify that thisnomination - request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering

properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property _L. meets - does not meet the National Register Criteria.

_2kg;N

See conth,uation sheet.

Signature of certifying official Date

State or Federal agency and bureau

In my opinion, the property - meets does not meet the National Register criteria.See continuation sheet.

Signature of commenting or other official Date

State or Federal agency and bureau

5. National Park Service Certification

I hereby certify that this property is:

_______

entered in the National Register

_______

See continuation sheet.

_______

determined eligible for theNational Register

_______

See continuation sheet.

_______

determined not eligible for the

_________________

National Register

_______

removed from the National Register

________________________

other explain:

________________ __________________

Signature of Keeper Dateof Action

6. Function or Use

Historic: Domestic Sub: Single Dwelling

cun-ent: Domestic Sub: Single_Dwelling

USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form Property name Horsehead/Marbella. Newport County. Jamestown. RI

7. DescrIption

Architectural Classification:

Other Description:

Materials: foundation STONE roof WOOD/shinglewalls STONE/WOOD other

_________________

Shingle

Describe present and historic physical appearance.

X See continuation sheet.

8. Statement of Significance

Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other properties: National

Applicable National Register Criteria: A, B. C

Criteria Considerations Exceptions:

Areas of Significance: ArchitectureIndustryLandscape ArchitectureSocial History

Periods of Significance: 1882-1925

________________

SignificantDates: 1882-84 1889-90 c.1920

Significant Persons: Wharton, Joseph

Cultural Affiliation:

______________________________________________

Architect/Builder: &..... Bevins. C. L._ Johnston. J.D.

State significance of property, and justify criteria, criteria considerations, and areas and periods of significancenoted above.

________

- -

_________- _____ _____

X See continuation sheet.

USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form Property name Horsehead/Marbella. Newport County. Jamestown. RI

9. Major Bibliographical References

.i.... See continuation sheet.

Previous documentation on file NPS:

- preliminary determination of Individual listing 36 CFR 67 has been requested.- previously listed in the National Register- previously determined eligible by the National Register- designated a National Historic Landmark- recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey

________

- recorded by Historic American Engineering Record #

________

Primary Location of Additional Data:

....X_ State historic preservation office- Other state agency- Federal agency_L. Local govemment- University...L Other.-SpecifyRepository: Newport Historical Soc.. Jamestown Historical Soc.

10. Geographical Data

Acreage of Property: 26 acres

UTM References: Zone Easting Northing Zone Easting Northing

A

__ ____ ____

BC

__ ____ ____

D

...L.. See continuation sheet.

Verbal Boundary Description: - See continuation sheet.The property encompasses Plat 10, lot 59, of Jamestown Assessor’s Plat Map.

Boundary Justification: - See continuation sheet.Extent of property historically associated with areas of significance.

11. Form Prepared By

Name/Title: Harrison M. Wright, Historian, and Wm McKenzie Woodward.Architectural Historian

Organization: R.I. Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission Date: 3/99

Street-&-Number-l5O.-Bene.f-it.street,.._ - - -- .----.- Telephone:-.4O1--2-22--26-7-8’- -

City or Town: Providence State: RI ZiP: 02903

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National Register of H!storic PlacesContinuation Sheet

Property name Horsehead/Marbella, Newport County. Jamestown, RI

Section number 7

Description

An oceanfront property with a substantial Shingle Style summer houseand carriage house/barn on twenty-six acres of rolling, rocky grounds,Horsehead occupies a promontory on Conanicut Island’s Southwest Point. Onthe north it is bounded by Highland Drive and two private residences; therest of the property is surrounded by water: the mouth of the East Passageof Narragansett Bay to the east and south and Mackerel Cove to the west.Both buildings are in excellent condition and look much as they did whenthey achieved their current form about 1890.

Horsehead’s setting is extraordinary, and the summer-house complex andits landscaped site are inextricably linked. With nearly a mile of rockygranite coastline, the property’s topography ranges from sea level toalmost ninety feet in some spots. Cliffs ranging from twenty to fifty feetin height overlook the water on the east and south. To the west are twocoves with small, pebbly beaches. The main house and the carriage houseare situated on high ground almost in the middle of the property. The mainresidence is dramatically sited: it both commands breathtaking views ofits surroundings and is itself, in return, an imposing sight from the wateror nearby Aquidneck Island. The vegetation of grass, bush, and treesprimarily cedar and oak on the rolling surface of the land is punctuatedby striking granite outcroppings of various sizes.

The seemingly natural landscape underwent significant siteimprovements when the property was developed in the l880s. Four retainingwalls were built near the water. Extensive filling and leveling occurredaround the house and carriage house/barn, which are built into the landwith dramatic changes in grade on the west side exposing basement-levelwalls which extend as retaining walls beyond the structures. To thenorthwest is a meadow of slightly over two acres. On the west side of theproperty a flight of over fifty wooden steps runs down to a grassy areajust above the south cove beach. Vehicular access to the property fromHighland Avenue originally followed two paths, both entered through gates:for guests, a dramatically unfolding spatial sequence along a winding grassdriveway to the east above the Southwest Point Cove retaining wall to thehouse’s front door; for service, a paved road that runs directly south tothe east of the meadow. Except for paths and the open lawn and a few smallgardens near the house complex, scrub growth seems largely unencumbered andmust be pruned to maintain both a natural look to the vegetation and themanyThttiki’hViewrfrbnrthrhbuse coñIl’èT -

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National Register of Historic PlacesContinuation Sheet

Property name Horsehead/Marbella, Newport County, Jamestown, RI

Section number 7

The large house, approximately fifty by ninety feet, is built ofrandom-course granite ashlar on the first story and on the north and southend-gable walls, with wood-shingle roof, dormers, and second story on thewest. The particularly animated exterior profile envelops an interior thatfills three full stories, a fourth-level attic, and a fifth-levelbelvedere. The low mass of the first story, open on the south end as aporch with round-arch openings carried on paired columns, crouches below atwo-story gable roof, intersected on the east side by four large donnersand giving way to a cross-gable-roof-capped second story on the west. Amassive tower intersects the facade wall just south of the front door:semi-octagonal at the first-story level, it fragments into sixteen sides onthe upper stories before opening to the elements at its highest level,immediately below a tall, ogee-curved roof, itself almost two stories high.Two red-brick pilastered chimneys rise from the house, a corbeled one atthe roof’s peak and a simpler one near the northeast corner. The frontentrance is set within a broad, somewhat low-slung round-arch openingapproximately in the center of the east elevation; the small, recessedporch, paneled in quarter-sawn oak and decorated with a geometric patternrendered in nail heads, frames narrow, small-pane bull’s-eye-glasssidelights and a two-panel double-leaf cherry door with stained-glasswindows. At the foot of the door is the phrase "Pax Vobiscum" rendered intiles set in concrete; a pair of dolphins with entertwined tails is canedin the transom. To the north of the entrance is a one-story oriel window.Windows on the west side’s basement story are tripartite, with rose-windowcenters flanked by sixteen-pane sash; those on the first story’s east andsouth elevations are single-pane with transom; those on the first-story’swest elevation are tripartite, with single-pane centers flanked by two-over-one sash; those on the north elevation and the upper stories of theeast and south elevation are small-diamond-pane-over-one sash; and those onthe west are two-over-one sash.

The interior, little changed since around 1890, retains significantinterior spaces on all four levels.

The basement level, above grade on its west side, originally housedthe kitchen, still intact but no longer used as such at the north end.Most of the basement space was utilitarian, including a large cellar withsome bedrock walls, an underground water tank, and a few service rooms, onecontaining the original built-in oversize ice box.

---The-ma±n-f±oor-is-s±mp1y--ta±d--outT-The-front-door7on-the--east7ye6ddirectly into the main stairhall, flanked by living room on the south,dining room on the north, and enclosed porch, now converted to kitchen on

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Property name Horsehead/Marbella, Newport County. Jamestown. RI

Section number 7

the west. North of the dining room is a library on the east and a pantryand service stairs on the west. Floors of the principal public rooms hereare oak parquet.

The cherry-wainscoted main stairhall, with two small coat closets atits east end, is broad and deep. A massive oak and cherry wood staircaserises at its southwest corner from a caned newel post capped by a stylizedpineapple and incorporates a built-in bench at its foot.

The thirty-six-by-eighteen-foot living room, entered through widepocket doors centered on its north wall, is the house’s largest room. Itis decorated with mixed woods, including oak and cherry. A massivefireplace, flanked by French doors to the porch, dominates the otherwisesimply finished room; its two-story pedimented mantel incorporates acentral mirror panel flanked by book shelves. Original glazed tiles,probably English, surround the hearth. At the room’s east, a wide, shallowwooden arch, inscribed "Multa Petentibus Multa Desunt," frames the largebay window with built-in seating at the base of the octagonal tower.Symmetrical window and French door lead to the west.

The dining room, entered through double oak doors, has high oakwainscoting, on the east wall are a small bay window and the fireplace,surrounded by tiles similar to those in the living room and bolectionmolding and capped by a modest mantel shelf. Symmetrical window and Frenchdoor lead to the west. A broad door on the north wall leads to the study,while a narrow door at the northeast corner leads to the pantry and servicestairs.

The library has built-in oak bookshelves on the west wall. The- striking blue Arts-and-Crafts wallpaper dates from about the time of the

First World War; the old telephone to the carriage house is still on thewall. A door at the north end of the west wall leads to a layette.

The small pantry to the northwest has its original built-in storage:counters with drawers or cupboards below on the east, north, and south andshelving with sliding glass doors above on east and south. In the northwest corner are the dumbwaiter and a speaking tube to the basement. A doorto the north leads to a small closet and to a staircase leading down to thebasement and up to the second floor.

kitchen and informal living area. The forty-by-eleven-foot west porch,originally open but enclosed in the early twentieth century, was remodeled

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Section number 7

to its current use in 1994-95. The cherry cabinetwork takes its designcues from both the cabinets in the pantry and the paneling in the livingroom; the floor is fir.

The second floor has a more utilitarian plan and finishes. The mainstair ends at an open living hall long designated the sewing room, whichextends toward the west. The plan is structured around a long, north-southhall that runs most of the length of the building and leads to sevenbedrooms, five full or partial bathrooms, and two hall closets. Inaddition to the main hall, bedrooms and bathrooms also communicate byinterior doors. The sewing room has low wainscoting and three windows thatlight the stairs and main stairhall. The master bedroom, largely in thetower near the southeast corner, incorporates a large bay window. Theother rooms are simply finished with painted or wallpapered walls. Two ofthe bathrooms have high wooden wainscoting, and several retain originalplumbing fixtures. An oak staircase at the south of the hall leads to thethird floor; a linen closet and a back staircase to the third floor are onopposite sides of the hail at the north.

Third floor organization is similar to that of the second floor, withlong north-south hail. Here, however, the hall is interrupted at themiddle of the house for a central bathroom, installed in the l920s, withtwo doors to permit passage from north to south. To the bathroom’s southare five bedrooms, including the tower guest bedroom; to the north, onesmall bedroom, a storage room, the service stair, and a large zinc-linedtank--no longer used--able to hold over 1300 gallons of water.

The final level is the sixteen-sided open deck within the top of thetower. Reached by narrow stairs and a sliding trap door, it provides a270-degree view of open water, from Newport harbor, Fort Adams, and CastleHill to the northeast and east, the open ocean and Block Island to thesouth, Mackerel Cove to the west, and up the West Passage beyond theJamestown-Verrazzano Bridge to the north. Hanging from the open woodenframing of the dome’s interior is a large bell.

The L-plan carriage house embraces a retaining-wall lined courtyard onits northeast side. Like the main house, it has random-course graniteashlar on the first story and the gable ends, wood-shingled upper-storywalls and roof and two fully exposed stories on the west elevation. It hasa steep roof on its north-south main axis, gabled at the south end, hipped

partially built into the ground. It has irregular fenestration on both itsfirst and attic stories. On the east wall of the first story is a vehicu

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Section number 7

lar entrance and smaller pedestrian or equine entrance. On the west wailare two vehicular entrances into the basement level. The dormers on theroof are simple gables, save for the semi-circular-plan hip-roof dormerabove the smaller entrance on the roof’s east slope and a large eyebrowdormer on the west slope. The most distinguishing characteristic of thecarriage house is the octagonal tower which breaks forth from the buildingmass at the center of the roof’s north slope. A pilastered brick chimneyrises from the ridge at the building’s south end.

The carriage house interior was originally designed to combine livingquarters for people, carriage horses, and a few farm animals. Thebasement, entered from outside on the west, is a single large space withseven brick support posts down the center and interior stone wallsalternating with exposed bedrock: its floor is beaten earth and concrete,and it has three original stalls for fan animals. A staircase connectsthe basement with the upper levels. The main floor is dominated by thelarge almost-thirty-foot-square open carriage room to the south; it hashigh wooden wainscoting. Just to the north are layette, saddle room nowused for storage, stable room, and steep, narrow enclosed staircase to thesecond floor. The stable room was made into a billiard room probably inthe mid-1920s. It has an oak floor and tongue-in-groove wooden walls andceiling. The second floor, entered from the outside by an exteriorstaircase on the south, has the original living quarters in its southernsection and the old hayloft in its north. The living quarters are somewhatcramped and awkward both because of the slope of the roof and because theywere originally subsidiary to the other functions of the building. Anarrow central hall has two bedrooms and a bathroom on the west side and akitchen and two bedrooms on the east. The original hayloft, used later asan artist’s studio and then as general living space, occupies the northernthird of the second floor. Its walls and its high ceiling are of tonguein-groove wood.

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UnIted States Department of the InteriorNational Park Service


Property name Horsehead/Marbella, Newport County. Jamestown. RI

Section number 7

PHOTOGRAPHS

3. Photographer: Harrison M. Wright4. Date: September, 19985. Negative filed: RIHP&HC

150 Benefit StreetProvidence, RI 02903

The above information applies to all photographs.

Photograph Number 1: View south along entrance drive.

Photograph Number 2: View of main house toward southwest overlookingMackerel Cove.

Photograph Number 3: View of main house toward northwest, with carriagehouse at lower right.

Photograph Number 4: View of complex toward southeast from meadow.

Photograph Number 5: View of main house toward northeast from bluff.

Photograph Number 6: View toward west of main stair hall, first floor.

Photograph Number 7: View toward southwest of living room.

Photograph Number 8: View toward northeast of dining room with studybeyond.

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Property name Horsehead/Marbella. Newport County, Jamestown, RI

Section number 7

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Property name Horsehead/Marbella. Newport County. Jamestown, RI

Section number 8

Significance

Built as the summer residence for a Philadelphia industrialist and hisfamily, the Wharton House 1882-84, 1889-90; Charles L. Bevins, architect;once known as Màrbella, now as Horsehead1 is significant in the historyof architecture, landscape architecture, industry, and Aierican society.Architecturally it represents an important stage in the evolution ofseaside Shingle Style summer houses. Its landscape is significant both forstudiously created naturalism and sequential ordering of space. Forindustry, it is significant as the summer home of Philadelphia steelmagnate and philanthropist Joseph Wharton 1826-1909, who developed theproperty beginning in 1882 and summered here with his family until hisdeath. Its significance to social history resides in its ability todocument Jamestown’s beginning development as a quieter, lower key summeralternative to the then-increasingly-showy architecture and leisureactivity in Newport, just across the East Passage of Narragansett Bay.

HISTORY

Wharton bought property on Southwest Point in 1882, and siteimprovements and construction of both main house and carriage house begansoon after. The house was habitable but not entirely completed when thefamily moved in for part of the summer of 1884. As first completed, thehouse had a simple two-story gable roof-intersected by the tower on theeast-that stretched down to shelter first-story public rooms and theporches on the south and west sides. In 1885 Wharton bought adjacentproperty to the west that provided him with convenient spring water andaccess to a cove where he could safely moor his boats. He named his houseMarbel].a. In 1889-90 Wharton decided he needed more space for guests andbuilt an addition on the west elevation above the porch; the shingled westwall extended a full two stories above the exposed basement and terminatedin a candle-snuffer tower on the southwest corner.

1This nomination will refer to the property as Horsehead;Wharton himself referred to the property as Horse Head, after onep its mos prominent cliffs, as earlys e of 1882, but y_ -

1898 the house itself seems to have assumed the name Marbella.Horsehead thus has the virtue of continuity, even if overshadowedfor a time by Marbella.

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Horsehead’s designer was Charles Lovatt Bevins 1843-1925, an Englisharchitect then- resident in Jamestown.2 No doubt Wharton also had asignificant hand in the overall design process, as he did in all hispersonal projects.3 Contractor John D. Johnston 1849-1928 was probablyalso involved in the design as well.4

Bevins is little known. Standard architectural sources include noreferences to him, and he is mentioned only in passing in Newport sourcesof the period. A native of Manchester, England, he came with his wife andchildren to Boston in 1878 and soon made his way to Jamestown, where hesettled in 1882. There he caught the rising tide of the boom in summercottages and, although he maintained his office in Newport from 1884 until1903, remained a resident of Jamestown into the l920s, when he moved to hisdaughter’s house in Newport, where he died. Many of Jamestown’s finestsummer houses in the 1880s and 1890s were his.5 When he undertookHorsehead, Bevins was already working on summer houses for Wharton’s

2Newport Mercury, 31 March 1883.

3Primary documentation is scanty. Wharton’s letterbooks forthis period of his life-unfortunately-are missing. Only onesheet of exterior plans unsigned remains for the main residence. See also Anna Wharton Morris, "A Trip Across the Bay,"Bulletin of the Newport Historical Society 96 January 1936: 3-12.

‘By 1882 the building contractor advertised his ability toprovide clients with plans and specifications. Johnston’s laterwork for the Wharton family includes Clingstone, built on anisland in the East Passage.

5other remaining commissions by Bevins include houses forAdmiral Thomas 0. Selfridge, Jr, The Barnacle 1886, 15 DumplingDrive and Red Top 1889, 185 Walcott Avenue; Mr and MrsTheophilus Stock, Fowlers Rocks 1892, 340 East Shore Road;Harry Potter 1890, 133 Fort Wetherill Road; General Robert E.Patterson, The Ramparts 1888, 27 Newport Street; David DixonPorter, Belvedere 1888-89, 36 Walcott Avenue; Daniel LymanHazard, Ledgehurst l887,8 acott Avenue; John P. Green,

_______

Anoatock 1889, 95 walcott Avenue; and Charles N. Bailey 1898-99, 105 Walcott Avenue. Bevins also designed the ThorndikeHotel 1889 and St Mark Roman Catholic Church.

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Property name Horsehead/Marbella, Newport County. Jamestown, RI

Section number 8

brother, Charles, and for another Philadelphia Quaker, Benjamin Shoemaker;in 1892-93 he designed Harbor Entrance on Bull Point for Wharton’s bestfriend, Isaac Clothier. Of these, only Horsehead remains. Bevins laterdesigned the 1889-90 addition for Horsehead as well as an unrealized addition in the late 1890s.

Johnston, a self-made local builder-architect who later designed andbuilt Newport City Hall and many Newport and Jamestown summer houses,served as general contractor and employed local artisans for the work.Charles Soule managed the carpentry; Frank or Alton Dawley, the masonry;Joseph Mayer, the painting and decorating; and the f in of Joseph & RobertHaire and Patrick Murphy, the plumbing. Although there was a steam ferryfrom Jamestown to Newport, it landed too far north for the workmen to beable to use it. Instead the workmen sailed daily from Newport to theDumplings area and then walked over the fields to the construction site.

Following Wharton’s death in 1909 his widow, Anna Corbit LoveringWharton 1830-1914, inherited the property. After her death in 1914, theWhartons’ youngest daughter Anna Wharton Morris Mrs Harrison 5., 1868-1957 bought the property from the estate, formally re-named it Horsehead,installed electricity and plumbing, added bookcases in the study, andchanged the color of the outside trim. The Morrises spent summers atHorsehead until 1941, when wartime restrictions and Harrison Morris’sdeclining health precluded their return. After Morris’s death in 1948 hiswidow returned to Horsehead each summer through 1952, when her ownillnesses made it impossible to continue. Upon her death, Anna Morris’sonly child, Catharine Morris Wright, an artist and author, inheritedHorsehead. After lending it to the British syndicate managing the firstpost-war Anerica’s Cup challenge in 1958, Mrs Wright penitted her childrento use it until her death in 1988. The property now belongs to her son,Harrison Morris Wright.

ARCHITECTURE

Horsehead belongs to the class of large, infonal, shingled summercottages that began to develop as an identifiable American residentialproperty type at northeastern seaside resort locations, including nearbyNewport, in the l870s. Intense scholarly activity’ over the past fortyyears has chronicled and analyzed their formal development.

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Most American summer houses, which began to emerge as a particularproperty type after 1840,6 constituted principally a wood-frame, wood-cladform of residential architecture. In the 1870s, country-house architecturebecame heavily influenced by English examples, especially the Queen Annedesigns of Richard Norman Shaw. The Americanization of English forms hadlargely occurred by 1880, and the developments in the 1880s illustrate oneof the most inventive periods of American architecture.7 How interesting,then, to consider a thoroughgoingly American country house designed by anEnglish architect .

Horsehead is especially interesting for the early applications ofsignal formal devices that became increasingly common as the 1880sunfolded: the use of masonry lower story, foundation, and integralretaining walls to unite the building and its site and the simplificationand abstraction of form, here with a prominent tower and a tightlycontained mass.

The shingled summer house set on a low, inconspicuous foundation andwith wood shingles used on most vertical and sloping surfaces-was by 1880the ljgua franca of stylish resorts from Cape May, New Jersey, to MountDesert, Maine. H. H. Richardson, arguably the most influential architectin the country by 1880, had just completed a number of important masonrypublic buildings. He then undertook several important domestic commissionsin which masonry played a significant, form-giving role to architecturaldesign. The first of these was the Ames Gate Lodge 1880-81, North

6Newport’s "Kingscote," The Jones-King House 1839 et sea.,Bellevue Avenue at Bowery Street NHL, is perhaps the oldesthouse in the country built at a summer resort for seasonaloccupation.

7vincent J. Scully, The Shingle Style and the Stick Style,rev. ed. New Haven, 1971, pp. 88-90.

8Knowledge of Bevins’s architectural background and trainingis sketchy. His obituary on 21 December 1925 in the NewportDaily News explains that ". . .early he developed a decided tastefor drawing and painting, and after a thorough schooling traveledextensively in the study ofarchitecture,visitingmanyof themost important places on the globe." Neither does there seem tobe any explanation for his emigration in 1878: did he come tothis country with the intent of designing summer cottages?

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Property name Horsehead/Marbella. Newport County. Jamestown. RI

Section number 8

Easton, Massachusetts, whose fieldstone first story appears to emerge outof the rock-strewn New England landscape. On a similar note, McKim, Mead &White’s contemporary Cyrus Mccormick House 1880-82, Richfield Springs,New York, sits atop a stone foundation whose walls extend beyond theenclosed porches into terraces. While other stone-foundation or stone-foundation-and-f irst-story Shingle Style houses were built in the early1880s, their emphasis is more on textural differentiation of wall surface,a continuation of the Shavian Queen Anne.

Horsehead establishes a close relationship between building and sitefound in only a few other houses from this early in the 1880s.Richardson’s influence is obvious in Peabody & Stearns’s Kragsyde, the G.N. Black House ca 1882, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, where therandom-course-ashlar foundation continues the stone outcroppings of thecliff-side setting. William Ralph Emerson began to use rugged masonryfoundations in such a site-specific way in 1881 both on Boston’s NorthShore and Mount Desert: like Kragsyde, both the Charles Loring House 1881in Beverly and Thirlstane, Mrs R. B. Scott’s House 1881, high on MaldenHill, used ruged stone foundations that appeared to grow out of rockoutcroppings. At Horsehead, the house is built into the side of a hillthat drops gently both to the north and west, and random-course-ashlarretaining walls extend the wall planes east and south to create a plateaueast and south of the house. Similarly, the carriage house, just north ofthe main house, continues this relationship, nuzzling into the lower partof this slope on its south and east sides and emerging from it to the northand west. At Horsehead, the intricate topographical relationships betweenboth the house and carriage house and the complex and its site make itvisually compelling as well as significant for the sophistication of itsspatial planning.

The use of a prominent cylindrical tower as a compositional devicecame into widespread use in the l880s’0. Complexity of massing, derivedfrom English examples, had characterized Modern Gothic, Queen Anne, andShingle Style houses since the early l870s. That complexity derived,

9miristane’s stone work, however, ends at the foundation;the principal floors were all clad in wood.

1!Both theiruse and the _increasing1yfQe1ept visual an& - -

written references to Norman architecture- during this decade nodoubt reflect the growing number of American students at theEcole des Beaux-Arts and their exposure to French architecture.

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National Register of Historic PlacesContinuation. Sheet

Property name Horsehead/Marbella. Newport County, Jamestown. RI

Section number 8

however, largely from the use of complex, irregular rectilinear plans,highly inflected roof forms with complex dormer configurations, andsculptural chimneys. Cylindrical towers prominent in both plan and profileare relatively rare before the early 1880s; they appear only occasionallyin the work of Bruce Price The Craigs [1879-80], Mount Desert, Peabody &Stearns The Breakers [1878, Newport, and, most conspicuously, inEmerson’s Thirlstane 1881. Just about the time that construction beganon Horsehead, prominent circular- or polygonal-plan towers began to appearmore frequently in the domestic work of Arthur Little and McKim, Mead &White. None of these, however, was so commanding as the tower atHorsehead; while other examples incorporate themselves in or subordinatethemselves to the overall massing of the building, Horsehead’s tower risesfar above the roof’s ridgeline to become the dominant element in the building’s profile. The tower is likely another site-driven design element,intended to evoke the lighthouse image-inspired by the similarl2y sitedBeavertail Light NR, located just two miles to the southwest.1

In the development of the Shingle Style, the containment ofarchitectonic volume within a simple, almost abstract, geometric shapebegan to occur in the early 1880s. McKim, Mead & White’s work certainlymoved in this direction, with the increasingly-horizontal building masslargely contained within one sweeping gable roof, suggested tentatively bythe Prescott Hall Butler House 1878-80, St James, New York, then moreassertively in the McCormick House 1880-82 and finally apotheosized inthe William G. Low House 1886-87 in nearby Bristol. Though more verticalthan McKim, Mead & White’s compositions Horsehead, especially as completedand before the 1890 addition, was one of the most abstract Shingle Stylehouses built until that time: a massive gable roof accommodating two upper

11Prominent towers play important compositional roles in thefirm’s casinos at Newport 1879-81, Narragansett 1881-84, andShort Hills, New Jersey 1882-83. Residential essays of theform occur somewhat tentatively in the Isaac Bell 1881-83 andFrances L. Skinner 1882 Houses, both in Newport. The RhodeIsland examples would certainly have been known to both Bevinsand Whartthi.

12Not surprisingly lighthouse imagery was found in otherseaside resorts at the same time, notably."Grasshead" 1882; --

Arthur Little, architect, Swampscott, Massachusetts and the E.C. Stedman House 1882-83; E. M. Wheelwright, architect, Newcastle Island, Maine.

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National Register of Historic PlacesContinuation Sheet.


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stories above a strictly rectangular building envelope, with the tightmassing broken only by the massive tower and a small oriel window on thefirst story of the east elevation. The clarity of this geometry wouldappear later in the work of Bruce Price, especially the Tuxedo Parkcommissions in the mid-l880s, as well as in the early work of Frank LloydWright. But at the time of its design and construction, Horsehead was inthe vanguard of this abstractivist approach.

Horsehead is clearly early in its use of close integration of buildingcomplex to site, its use of a prominent polygonal or circular tower, andits use of abstract geometric form. What further distinguishes Horseheadis the combination of all three elements in a new, exciting way. Incontrast to other similarly conceived houses, it retains an emphaticverticality, a quality attributable both to its design by architect,client, and contractor and to its response to the site. The wholecomposition, with ruggedly simple forms firmly rooted to the site and yeteminently visible from most directions, demonstrates an architecturalvision that is equally strong and subtle.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Horsehead’s landscaping was-and still is-one of the most significantfeatures of the property. After considerable thought Wharton decided notto build his house on the edge of the cliff the location chosen forseveral of the above-cited seaside shingled houses where its views of thebay and the ocean would have been direct, obvious, and unobstructed, but toplace it farther back, where it would be better protected from storm andwould sit more centrally on his large property.

The landscape was considerably altered to accommodate the residentialcomplex and to maximize views, and some of the most dramatic changesoccurred on the site of the house and carriage house. Rock was blasted toclear the site for development, and some of the blasted rock-along withrock from elsewhere.-was then used in the lower portions of both main houseand carriage house and for part of the main driveway’s retaining wall. Inaddition to blasting and filling to create a high, level plateau on whichto place the house and carriage house, fill was added among the rockycliffs for paths and views, and a retaining wall was added to the south,overlooking the ocean. A series of carefully-placed saddles between therocky outcroppings allowed views of the ocean and the bay even from the

first ftOorofthcmainThouse, despiteits ThtanctThf30CtoThver60rfeet -

from the water. The resulting long perspectives were extremely pictur-esque, and they depended on the lack of vegetation characteristic of the

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United States Depañment of the InteriorNational Park Service



Section number 8

area at that time. Indeed, much of the history of the property has been astruggle to maintain the historic views, both of the cliffs and of thewater, while at:the same time allowing for a natural and inevitable growthof vegetation where appropriate. To the north he separated his twenty-sixacres of land behind formidable stone walls.

- Other site improvements occurred on the Mackerel Cove side of theproperty to the’west. The southern cove was dredged to create sufficientdepth for a long pier for-boats. A number of walls both decorative andfunctional, some steps in the cliffs here and there to facilitateclimbing, and a variety of carefully laid out paths were insertedunobtrusively and naturalistically through the landscape. A small bathinghouse by the pier, a flight of wooden steps down to the south cove, awindmill to pump water, a boathouse by the north cove, and a grass tenniscourt to the west of the house completed the landscaping and minor structures.13 The prOperty had no formal gardens and few decorative plantings.For the most part it was intended to look as bare and as dramatic as it hadbefore development began.

Horsehead’s ordering of space produces a dramatic, sublime sequence,especially that of the main drive, now little used but maintained in itshistoric appearance. Located on the south side of Highland Avenue, themain gates open onto a grass driveway that curves almost immediately to theeast and undulates through a heavily wooded section. Down a hill, thedrive reveals Southwest Point Cove in the foreground, the mouth of the EastPassage at mid-range, and Aquidneck Island beyond. The road then curvessouth and climbs the hill both next to and atop the east retaining walls,with water far below to the east, a steeply wooded hill above to the west,and only the sky in view directly ahead to the south. Below the crest ofthe hill, the road turns right, to the west, to begin the final ascent tothe main house, which emerges into sight directly on axis with the road asthe water is again revealed to the south. No other country house approachin Rhode Island is so dramatically conceived as Horsehead’s, and it isundoubtedly among only a handful on the New England coast-especially inthis fine state- of preservation.

13Of hese improvements, only the wooden steps down to thesouth cove remains.

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Property name Hozsehead/Marbella, Newport County. Jamestown. RI

Section number 8

INDUSTRY

Horsehead is significant to industry for its association with JosephWharton 1826-1209. His summer residence for twenty-five years, it is theremaining propety most closely associated with this important Philadelphiaindustrialist, philanthropist, and founder of the Wharton School of Financeat the University of Pennsylvania.14

Joseph Wharton 1826-1909 descended from prominent Quaker merchantfamilies of Philadelphia and Newport. His grandfathers, Samuel RowlandFisher and Charles Wharton, were Philadelphians; his grandmothers, HannahRodman and Hannah Redwood, Newporters. His independently wealthy father,William Wharton, 1790-1856, primarily concerned himself with Quakermatters and had1 a role in the Hicksite-orthodox separation of the 1820s andl830s. His mother, Deborah Fisher Wharton 1795-1888, a minister in theSociety of Friends Quakers, was involved in various Quaker causes andcharities and was one of the founders of Swarthmore College.

Joseph, the fifth of ten children, was privately educated.Particularly interested in chemistry, foreign languages, and business, heestablished with his brother a white-lead company in 1847. From 1853 to1863 he managed the Lehigh Zinc Company and produced the first commerciallysuccessful spelter in the United States. In 1857 he was one of thefounders of a small iron company that in 1861 became the Bethelem IronCompany and eventually part of Bethelem Steel. In the l860s he bought anabandoned nickel mine in Gap, Pennsylvania, and was for a long period theonly producer o,f refined nickel in the country. He developed a puremalleable nickel 1875 that was used, among other applications, in thenickel coinage of the United States and Germany. In public policy he waswell known and influential, as a supporter of protective tariffs. His philanthropy emphasized education: he was a donor to Swarthmore College andChairman of its Board of Managers from 1883 to 1907; in 1881 he establishedthe University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, the first business schoolin the United States.

14Also associated with Wharton is Batsto, in the New Jersey-- pinelands. In 1873 Wharton purchased what became by 1900_a .150-

square-mile tract which included a substantial Federal house,which Wharton remodeled in the Italianate mode and added a 100-foot-high tower.

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SOCIAL HISTORY

Horsehead is significant in the development of the Town of Jamestownand Conanicut Island the two are coterminous as a summer resort in thelate nineteenth; century. Although settled by wealthy families from out ofstate, like Newport to the east and Narragansett to the west, Jamestown’sdevelopment was! significantly different in character.

Isolated from the mainland to the west until 1940 and from AquidneckIsland to the east until 1969, Conanicut was slower to develop as summerresort than both of its neighbors. Conanicut was a largely undevelopedagricultural island as late as 1870. At this time a small village existedon the island’s, east shore, fewer than fifty houses stood north ofNarragansett Avenue, five houses stood on Beavertail, and only one house,the Cottrell farmhouse, stood south of Hamilton Avenue. The entire islandhad fewer than 500 residents The organization of several real-estate-development companies after 1872 and the inauguration of regular ferryservice between- East Ferry and Newport in 1873 signaled the beginning ofthe island’s transformation into a small-scale summer resort.

In 1875, the Ocean Islands Company acquired the southernmost 265-acretract of the Cottrell Farm and began selling land overlooking the granitecliffs in and around the island’s Dumplings area. By 1882 the marinepainter William Trost Richards and Wharton’s brother Charles were buildingsummer houses above the cliffs east of Southwest Point and began to singthe area’s praises. Richards’s assessment of Conanicut as "no place morelovely in all the world" no doubt prompted other Philadelphians to locatein the vicinity. Wharton was fortunate to obtain one of the best sites,Southwest Point, where he began construction in 1883. By 1887 some dozenPhiladelphia families occupied summer houses in this vicinity. Only ahandful remain -today; both the Richards and Charles Wharton Houses havedisappeared.

Like other Philadelphia Quakers, the Whartons seem to have foundNewport too frivolously social for the proper upbringing of their daughtersand sought the quiet isolation of Conanicut for their summer home. Thekind of summer life that the Wharton family led was similar to that oftheir neighbors and is perhaps best reflected in the program of theirsummer house, which clearly was not designed for large-scale entertainment -

or for show. There was adequate room for family and friends; but incontrast to many contemporary Newport houses there was no ballroom, concertroom, billiards room or other gathering place specifically for theentertainment of large numbers of guests. Even the two most public spaces,

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United States Depatment of the InteriorNational Park Service


Propertyname Horsehead/Marbella, Newport County, Jamestown. RI

Section number 8

the living and dining rooms, were comparatively unpretentious and barelyable to accommo&ate more. than the house could comfortably sleep. The housewas, in fact, ecactly what Wharton had intended: a quiet summer home for awealthy Victorian Quaker family of five, their servants, and occasionalguests who came’to enjoy the splendid views, quiet solitude, and the gentlecompany of the house’s inhabitants.

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United States Depatment of the InteriorNational Park Service

National Register of Historic PlacesContinuatioh Sheet

Property name Hoi’sehead/Marbe1la. Newport County. Jamestown, RI

Section number 9

Major Bibj.iograhica1 References

"Joseph Wharton." Dictionary of American Biography. New York.

Newport Directorv. Providence, 1883-1925.

Newport Daily News.

Newport Mercury.

Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission. Historic andArchitectural Resources of Jamestown, Rhode Island. 1995.

Wharton Family Papers.

Wharton, Anna Morris. "A Trip Across the Bay." Bulletin of the NewportHistorical1 Society 96January 1936: 3-12.

Yates, W. Ross.1 Joseph Wharton: quaker Industrial Pioneer. Bethlehem:Lehigh Press. 1987.

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Property name Hoisehead/Marbe1la. Newport County. Jamestown, RI

Section number 10 -.

Geographical Data

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United States Department of the Interior National Park ... · PDF fileNPS Form lO. 8 No....

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Transcript of United States Department of the Interior National Park ... · PDF fileNPS Form lO. 8 No....